228  Pharmacopceial  Assays  of  Drugs  and  Ga/encta/s.{Am-^lyT^&vm- 
requirements  cannot  influence,  one  way  or  another.  It  is  obvious, 
then,  that  a  correct  and  uniform  sampling  of  such  drugs  can  only 
be  accomplished  by  grinding  the  parcel  and  mixing  intimately — in 
other  words,  by  destroying  the  physical  identity  of  the  drug. 
Other  difficulties  might  be  mentioned,  but  in  the  writer's  opinion, 
those  cited  appear  to  be  the  most  prominent  ones.  Some  excellent 
suggestions  on  this  subject  were  presented  to  the  British  Pharma- 
ceutical Conference  in  1884,  in  two  papers  written  by  Mr.  G.  F. 
Schacht  and  by  Mr.  D.  B.  Dodd  {Year-book,  1884,  pp.  480,  485); 
they  discuss  in  a  clear  and  unimpassioned,  but  convincing  manner 
the  claims  for  standardization  and  some  of  the  fallacies,  and  are  in 
marked  contrast  to  some  papers  which  made  their  appearance  more 
recently  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic. 
In  the  beginning  of  these  remarks  I  stated  that  in  the  past, 
pharmacy  had  endeavored — I  now  add  .that  she  honestly  continues 
in  her  endeavors  to  perfect  pharmacopceial  processes  and  to  render 
galenicals  as  permanent  and  uniform  as  possible.  To  reach  the 
theoretical  perfection,  a  great  deal  of  labor  will  have  to  be  per- 
formed, and  many  intricate  researches  will  have  to  be  carried  out  to 
a  successful  issue,  by  physiologists,  by  therapeutists,  by  chemists 
and  by  pharmacists.  In  the  meantime,  ordinary  prudence  demands 
that  a  praiseworthy  object  should  not  be  jeopardized  by  laying  a 
treacherous  foundation,  and  that  the  Pharmacopoeia  should  not 
sanction  processes  which,  in  their  results,  do  not  and  cannot  prove 
that  at  which  they  aim,  and  consequently  introduce  uncertainties, 
and  even  sources  of  danger,  equally  great  or  greater  than  existed 
before. 
In  closing  these  remarks,  I  cannot  more  fittingly  summarize  them, 
than  by  quoting  the  conclusions  arrived  at,  from  a  different 
starting  point,  by  Mr.  Schacht  in  the  paper  cited  above  :  "  Bodies 
of  definite  chemical  composition  and  their  dilutions  are  eligible  for 
standardizing ;  but  preparations  of  the  nature  of  vegetable  (drugs) 
infusions,  tinctures,  extracts,  being  for  the  most  part  mixtures  of 
indefinite  and  unknown  agencies,  cannot  be  standardized  without 
risk  of  misleading.  Whenever  any  one  of  this  latter  class  of  bodies 
has  been  so  studied  that  the  remedial  potencies  and  chemical 
properties  of  all  its  elements  are  declared  by  authority  to  be  well 
known,  that  one  passes  from  the  latter  class  into  the  former." 
